Someone Else
by Galacticlone
Summary: Their marriage was doomed from the start; a rotting visage of one-sided promises wrapped in opulent wedding gifts to mask the sickening stink of failure looming cycles ahead on their doomed skylines. If only Purple had listened...maybe he wouldn't have to find someone else. (Requested RAPR divorce one-shot. SAD).


Requested, depressing one shot from one of my followers, **Lucita,** on my Instagram! This one hurt me to write, and was so difficult to think about, but I enjoyed the challenge, so I hope you like your sadistic gift my lovely!

(also what's up with y'all requesting depressing stuff from me all of a sudden? It's delectable and I love you for it.)

**Rated M for brief heavy language, mild sexual content, and general adult themes.**

Chapter loosely inspired by the song "Always" by The Birthday Massacre.

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Words meant nothing anymore, repeated phrases because they were needed to keep up the decorum, not because there was any emotion or passion behind those hollow syllables. They were shells, thrown about to try and reignite a once bright burning spark that had died away so long ago to a decrepit numbness thawing in their apocalyptic hearts. Something had broken in his worn-down husband one day; nothing was normal anymore as they violently screamed and argued vehemently for the entire ship to hear through their bitter, acrimonious tears and shattering plates tossed hard at the wall in a blind rage. Red couldn't handle it anymore, pacing vehemently around their quarters, stripping clothes from closets and snatching toothpaste from drawers. Purple had panicked as his world melted away and shattered, a despairing appreciation for everything he truly had overriding the antagonism far too late as he pleaded and bawled for him to stay, admitting to his disgusting violation of their thirteen-cycle marriage and rattling off excuse after pitiful excuse for why he had done what he did. Red had merely pushed off his shaky hands and thrown open the hatch, slamming it shut behind him forever.

Forever.

That had been nearly a month ago.

Red had already come by for his stuff, wordlessly avoiding eye contact when he took heavy boxes from his silently sobbing partner, never once giving him the satisfaction of a final word or reconciliation. Everything had been left without closure, a festering wound for Red to pour burning salt into as he snatched expressionlessly at cardboard and tossed keys back in Purple's face when he desperately tried to get him to say something…_anything_ to let him know he had at least heard his choking cries as he clawed at his armor and ran a trembling palm up to rest against his warm cheek.

_B-Baby…please…don't do this. I-I…I promise I-I can change._

All he got in return was a final, disjointed glare before he was gone again, leaving Purple to punch out his anguish in his pillow at night when he had to sleep cold and alone.

He had done it to himself.

Purple reached up and gingerly removed once beautiful wedding photos from his bland bedroom walls, running his shaky claws over the glass and staring down in a mixture of revulsion and anguish at the wide, cheesy grin and amorous crimson eyes staring back at him as they held up expensive champagne in their matching, pressed suits. The next one cut deeper than the gorgeous cake they had shared, Red laughing as Purple fed him the first sugary, frosted bite of their supposed forever. Forever…what a strong word. If only they had known how wrong they were, maybe they could have been friends. Maybe Red would still be in his life. The last frame was the worst, chilling Purple's already weak, broken pulse as he stared with raw, tear filled eyes for a long while at the defining moment he should never have taken for granted. The kiss that was supposed to bond them together in loving, unending matrimony had unknowingly ruined them from the start; a rotting visage of one-sided promises wrapped in opulent wedding gifts and topped with the gentle breeze of their tropical honeymoon to mask the sickening stink of failure looming cycles ahead on their doomed skylines.

It had been an unsteady, precarious mess from the start. They had rushed into things, focusing on the sensuality of the physical and blindly overlooking the dominating connotation that legal commitment really brought into their young lives. There were schedules, taxes, finances, and stressed midnight hours with Red sitting up on their couch trying to solidify their monthly budget while Purple dozed and immaturely brushed off his repeated questions like he wasn't even there. There were dishes to be done, laundry to be washed, floors to be swept. The monotony of it all, of the promise of 'domestic bliss,' had squeezed at Purple's rebellious core every time he had watched Red try to pick up the pieces of his disgusting laziness and reluctantly clean up after the horrid trail of messes left in his disastrous wake. They would get in heated spats, Red holding up empty beer bottles or handfuls of expensive receipts for frivolous junk they didn't need, desperate to get Purple to realize the destructive wedge he was slowly hammering between them. He never listened, thinking Red would come around eventually and continuing to subject him to one-sided efforts that bore down on his nerves every time they were in the same room.

The once vivid, exquisite tenderness between them had become emotionless and icy, Red distantly putting out when Purple would cry and halfway demand his touch after long, exhausting days at work that he was usually too weary to give but had been forced to anyway. It wasn't fair, and Purple had known that in the back of his mind as he stared up at the monumental effort it always took his husband not to roll off and leave to sleep on the couch, getting lost to the halfhearted, aloof sense of indifferent pleasure and trying to reignite their passion through deeply unsympathetic kisses and impersonal hands wandering a body that no longer craved his attention through his exhaustion. It wasn't like Red didn't love him; he loved Purple more than anything in the callous cosmos swirling around them. He knew what had to be done and was doing everything alone, left to his ways as Purple ventured off planet to lavish parties and social functions while he labored his mind into submission. That's what hurt the most…loving unconditionally but knowing that at the core of the complicated, tangled jumble of clashing heads and misaligned emotions that it could never work.

It would never work.

Purple glanced up and caught sight of a jovial memory from their distant past, now a callous reminder of who they had once been. Red stared back at him with a proud beam in his crisp Elite uniform, caught mid-laugh by his then boyfriend from the pilot's seat of the gorgeous, freshly painted Spittle Runner Purple had gone out of his way to find as a gift after he had been promoted to Sergeant. Red came from a meager outpost in the middle of nowhere and didn't have much money, a stark contrast to the hundreds of thousands of dollars sitting idly in Purple's bank account from his affluent life living in the capitol. He had been a high-ranking officer at the time, tagging along with an Elite recruiter to the surface of the planet Devastis to perform safety evaluations on the training camps there when they had crossed paths; a beautiful, wide-eyed soldier unsoiled by the harsh pangs of war. As soon as he had said hello, Purple had fallen apart and pinned him in his mind like a dead butterfly to a corkboard, promising himself that he would somehow make the tall, handsome cadet his. He always got what he wanted, sucking Red slowly dry over two cycles of dating and thirteen cycles of excruciating, unkind marriage. If only Purple had been a little more understanding, a little less fractious, maybe he wouldn't have torn Red's heart out like he did.

He blinked through his frustrated tears and tugged the picture frame down, moving on to the next with a long, low sigh, averting his aggrieved gaze as he covered the image with his palm and ripped it away with a silent sob. It was the infamous news article of their ascension to Tallest, two thrilled husbands raring to change the dithering opinions of the public that two divine rulers could also be a healthy couple, stripping back hundreds of years of written in stereotypes and defunct tradition. If they were honest with themselves, the only reason they had lasted this long was because neither of them wanted to admit to cynical defeat and prove to the public that a loving relationship really _couldn't_ surmount the unbelievable stressors and perilous decisions that came with the office. They had been healthy and happy for a few cycles, sure but that quickly changed when Red had pushed Purple away one night and boiled over, growing exasperated by his constant, untamed sexual needs and immature, disgusting drinking binges at three in the morning like they were both still in the Academy together. Purple had screamed back and stormed out when Red insisted he was going to bed, stomping down the dimly lit corridor of the Massive in his nightshirt to the darkened mess hall where he proceeded to shriek out his frustrations and kick repulsively at tables and chairs, drawing the unsuspecting attention of someone passing by on the way to his quarters for a shift change…._someone_ who would put a wrench in the entirety of their world and unknowingly eradicate the final threads of dwindling patience Red had so generously given.

The tall communications officer had been kind-hearted, soft even, hopping the closed counter of the mess hall to root through the storage contents with a youthful vigor that had peaked Purple's flighty attention in all the wrong ways. He had watched in wonder through his fury as he pulled his thick visor away and grinned back, expertly mixing them a few fruity drinks in an attempt to be nice and quench the pain he saw flashing over his Tallest's disturbed face. They sat and chatted leisurely through the gloom for hours, swallowing down devilish alcohol until they erupted in fits of boisterous laughter together and hands crept closer over the smooth metal of their two-seater table. It was refreshing, a lingering trace of a remembrance long lost between him and Red when they would get drunk together at parties and end up outside, backs pressed to the walls of vivacious clubs they frequented as lips roamed skin and hands reached for waistbands. Purple wasn't really sure how it happened, dragging the officer to his feet and stooping to his height to indulge in the feeling of his foreign, vodka tinged mouth, loosely picturing those times in the back of his blurry mind as he squeezed his hazy eyes shut and imagined it was Red moving hungrily against his skin.

It was a mistake.

Purple couldn't even remember his name when they had stumbled back to the officer's quarters in a blind, intoxicated frenzy, laying into one another and biting at smooth necks until hot tongues had bobbed between trembling splayed thighs and Purple had thrown his head back to slur out a vicious stream of damming moans as he allowed himself to be filled with ignorant cruelty with someone he didn't love. He tried to tell himself through the horrendous act that it was somehow Red's fault…that every rejected advance because he was tired had simmered inside his spooch until his atrocious needs had to be taken care of by someone who could handle his sweltering, infantile behavior. He had cried out his husband's name as the ecstasy of disorienting release finally came, pulling back and clamping a hand against his mouth as the officer stared back at him in hurt disbelief, pushing him off his lap and shuddering away across the mattress when an uncleanliness swamped them both. Neither of them could make eye contact when the officer swallowed his own pain and realized the horror of what they had done, eyes flittering to the glittering gold of the sickening wedding ring Purple had forgotten to work off his finger.

_I think you…um…I think you should leave, Purple._

As soon as it was over, the weight of the crushing, overpowering urges he had so wrongfully given himself over to caused Purple to panic and scream irately back at his improvised partner in a frenzied rage, grabbing for blankets when he stumbled about in his inebriated, nauseating haze and couldn't find his clothes, staggering back out into the hallway against his already destroyed judgement to make the devastating trek back to his quarters where his oblivious lover slept in their bed surrounded by their wedding photos.

He had cheated on his first true love.

He had cheated on his husband.

He had cheated on Red.

_Pur?_

Purple could almost remember the horrorstruck, soul-crushing look of utter heartbreak on his husband's face when he had come to find him, to apologize for his exhaustion lately and hold him close through the night, to suggest they see a marriage counselor because he truly wanted to make things work with the dastardly Irken he thought would be his forever. Hot, excruciating tears fell from unbelieving crimson eyes as Purple stood shivering in the messy swathe of another man's bedsheets with the stench of strange cologne smeared over his bruised, milky skin. Red had wordlessly grabbed him by the arm and drug him home, sobbing the entire way as Purple begged and pleaded for him to understand his appalling actions to no avail.

He was wrong…he was wrong.

_Who was it, huh?! Was it that prick from engineering whose ass you always stare at or the whore of a communications officer who makes eyes at you over the bridge?!_

_Red, please! You never want to do anything anymore! Do you even find me attractive at all?! I-I have needs! I can't keep coming back here when you always push me away!_

_That's not the point! I-I loved you and this is what you do to repay me for everything I've done to try and keep this shitty marriage afloat?! I loved you, Purple, and I'm beginning to realize you never even loved me to begin with! I was just some fucking toy for you to get off on for thirteen cycles!_

_Baby, please, of course I love you! I've always loved-_

_Shut the hell up! You always make excuses and I'm tired of it!_

_Red, please! P-Please! We can make this work! I-I…I-I can…I-I'll go to the marriage counselor with you! I-I'll…I-I'll do the dishes and clean up the house and never make another stupid mistake like that again! It was a mistake! It…i-it didn't mean anything, honey….it d-didn't…it didn't mean anything! Please, I love you! I love you!_

_No. You wanna go fuck other guys? Fine. You win. Let them deal with you because I'm done._

_W-what? No! I don't want anyone else! W-What do you m-mean you're done?! P-Please! I-I'll do anything! W-what do you want from me, Red?!_

_I want a divorce._

It had all happened so fast. One minute the love of Purple's life was slumbering peacefully in their bed, and the next he was battling insomnia in his office while his own quarters were being prepared on the other side of the ship they would be forced to share. Red had left his well-worn wedding ring in the dish by the foyer to remind Purple of the extraordinary, resilient, handsome man he had once held but never appreciated. He had forced Red to pick up the fragments of his shattered mind and internally laughed when he had frantically tried to glue them together for cycles, always coming up short a few jagged pieces as he tiptoed around the aching realization that they weren't meant to be. He should have been there when Red was toiling diligently on the bridge into all hours of the night, should have smoothed away his stress with loving words instead of dumping more unnecessary work on him when he returned, should have never used those calloused hands for his own selfish pleasure when he knew Red had worked them to the bone.

He should have never been unkind.

He should have never let that officer take him.

Should.

So many shoulds…

Purple set his box of outdated pictures gingerly down on his now frigid bed and turned with puffy eyes to the weighty stack of legal papers strewn over his cluttered nightstand. He scrunched up his face as he threw himself down and bawled into his hands. Why did he have to be so stupid? Why did he have to crush the sensitive, beating heart that had so carefully been passed into his hands? He had never listened to Red…never given him what he wanted or needed….Purple swallowed his pride and peeled his tear stained fingers away, grabbing shakily for his pen and the hefty packet of divorce proceedings as he thumbed through the agonizingly haunting contents and tried to hold himself together. No more. He wouldn't torture Red anymore. For once in their tumultuous, appalling, excruciating relationship he had to listen. If he ever loved him like he claimed so furiously he had, he would stop suffocating him in his broken, torturous grip and cast him back out into the wind to find his own true, pure happiness with someone else.

Someone else.

Purple initialed every line with a hollow despondency that would forever plague him until his forlorn, desolate death. He had to set him free.

"I love you, Red, and...I'm sorry."

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This one actually hurt my hard heart to write. Thanks for the request lovely **Lucita** and I hope you enjoy the disastrous lack of a happy ending this has!


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